Capacity building program on leadership and gender equality for women from underrepresented groups The overall goal of the program is to strengthen the leadership skills of a group of 35 active women from underrepresented groups, as well their knowledge on how to advocate and to promote gender equality in decision making processes at national and local level. It is implemented in collaboration with Institute for Development and Social Initiatives “Viitorul”, in the period July 19November 18, 2016. The 35 participants come from across the country: 40% from Chisinau and 60% from other districts: Drochia, Ungheni, Floresti, Causeni, Orhei, Hancesti, Balti, Soroca, Ialoveni, Leova, Floresti, Dubasari, Edinet, and Anenii Noi. Aiming at ensuring inclusion and diversity, the program is designed to gather participants from different underrepresented groups, as following: - Women with different types of disabilities; - Romani women; - Women with non-traditional professions; - Youth; - Local councillors; - Members of NGOs; - Migrant women; - Women entrepreneurs. Being the first program of its kind, it succeeded to gather women with different backgrounds from across the country to learn together and to exchange good practices among themselves. To support participants to strengthen their skills as future leaders and gender equality advocates, following methods were used: - Three 1,5-day training sessions (7-8 September, 6-7 October, 10-11 November). - Practical homework exercise in between sessions to consolidate and practice the learnt information (1. Prepare a short presentation about themselves and publically deliver it; 2. Collect and document discrimination cases in public institutions within their communities; 3. Develop a speech on promoting the interest of people from
vulnerable groups; 4. Carrying out a minitraining in their communities based on the program, developing a project idea to solve community issue). - Visits and dialogue sessions with decision makers from Government and Parliament (Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family; Parliament of the Republic of Moldova; Ministry of Youth and Sport; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Education; National Anticorruption Center). - After finalization of the capacity building program, participants will be assisted to develop the concept and materials for spreading the obtained knowledge to other women in their communities. This will allow to increase the pool of future leaders and gender equality advocates.
“I liked the techniques and the learnt methods, which I consider useful to be applied, as well as other tips and tricks which I heard about for the first time, even though I had previously participated in other trainings. I am sure that this program will have a positive impact on our future involvement in social life, as women,” Natalia Luta, participant in the program.
At the end of the program, skills in the following will be developed:
1. Gender Equality in national and international policies and at local level: mechanisms, principles and practical examples; Important issues regarding discrimination; The importance of cooperation at the community level, how to build consensus between underrepresented groups and create alliances on joint topics
2. Elaboration and delivering of public speeches; Principles and techniques of developing of political message; Principles and tools of an efficient nonverbal and para-verbal communication; Communication with people from vulnerable groups
3. Leadership:
tools and methods; Advocacy and negotiation; Techniques of persuasion and influence
“The training was more than productive. I felt the positive emotions and a real interest shown by each participant. Besides this, a substantial role was the interactions among women. I have concluded that women can have enough energy to fight for the justice,” Svetlana Covaș, another participant in the program. The capacity building program is supported by United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UN Women) under the Programme “Women in Politics”, implemented jointly by UN Women and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in partnership with East Europe Foundation and Center “Partnership for Development”, with financial support of Government of Sweden.